Morning Joe host makes admission about Obama (video)

MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough made a stunning admission on Tuesday about former President Barack Obama.

“As I’ve suggested before, Barack Obama wasn’t ready in my opinion to be president,” said the “Morning Joe” host. He went on to call Obama “a glorified state senator” in the course of discussing the viral topic of whether or not Oprah Winfrey could be making a run for the White House after her well-received speech at the Golden Globe Awards on Sunday night.

The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson, a guest on Tuesday’s show, said he wouldn’t underestimate Winfrey as a candidate. “Oprah has always shared her struggles and vulnerabilities,” he said explaining her longtime appeal, but he wouldn’t compare her to Trump. “Oprah seems to unite people… while Trump continues to divide people.”

Scarborough recalled how Donald Trump was “always underestimated. He had mad political skills on a bizarre level that few of us understood at the time. He knew how to connect with people and look where we are.”

The former GOP congressman went on to spill his personal feelings about Obama on the show, saying, “There are so many great things personally about Barack Obama, even though so many of his policies drive me crazy, but Barack Obama wasn’t ready, in my opinion, to be president. He was, as I said, a glorified state senator.”

Scarborough added, “If Barack Obama stayed in Senate for a term and actually learned the frustrations of Washington, he would have been a much better president in my opinion.”

He went on to praise Marco Rubio for his Washington experience. “Marco understands the frustrations of Washington. And Marco is not doing what Barack Obama did and so many other people are doing, ‘I’m getting elected to the Senate and now I’m going to run for president of the United States.’ It’s hard.”

In 2017, Scarborough announced on an episode of Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” that he was leaving the Republican Party in protest of President Trump.

“That’s not a party that Ronald Reagan can associate with; it’s certainly not a party that I can associate with,” Scarborough concluded. “And listen, I want lower taxes; I want less regulations; I want a more competitive economy; I want the government taking less money from me. But not at this price,” he told Colbert.

Winfrey, 63, a TV host, producer and philanthropist, has denied she will seek the office. However, her Golden Globes speech gave liberal pundits the fuel they needed to start speculating about renewed hopes that she might take on Trump in 2020.